SparkFun Electronics Commentsurn:uuid:214d0e4e-f1b1-d287-ce26-ac5b4c9f82492019-05-25T09:19:44-06:00SparkFun ElectronicsCustomer #588595 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightCustomer #588595urn:uuid:46f14fda-5e3d-34bb-2e46-c1b313a8ee102017-01-11T08:26:10-07:00<p>I've suffered from anxiety disorders since I was 14, but for me they've morphed in and out of clarified disorders over that time, and I developed Panic Disorder sometime during mid 2013. I've gone through my own littany of health-monitoring hardware but never recorded the findings nearly as complete as you've shown above. Thanks for the awesome article and ideas, as well as shedding light on a seriously under-discussed and misunderstood health topic. The more exposure and understanding anxiety disorders get, the better it gets for both the people who suffer for them and the people who interact with those who suffer.<p>P.S. To Nick and anyone suffering anxiety, in <em>addition</em> to CBT, you really should check out daily mindfulness meditation. I've played the on-off SSRI game for the better part of two decades now, and while they have been instrumental in helping me achieve and maintain some normalcy in my life, nothing has been as effective, encompassing, or devoid of side effects as daily 10 to 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation. I highly recommend giving it a shot. Worst case scenario is you've wasted a bit of time, just be aware that mindfulness is something that requires time to build up and make changes, it's not an "incidental" fix (although it can be used in a CBT-like manner for acute panic).</p></p>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:c8f4d553-d6d1-6673-62d9-c89b3970427b2015-08-24T12:42:37-06:00<blockquote>
<p>If you are actually having panic attacks, one word: Psychiatrist.</p>
<p>This is an issue that I've been working with my doctors with for the better part of a decade now. Rest assured, I'm not shy about professional help.</p><p>As for your second comment, that's interesting I'll have to do some poking around a learn more about protime. Do they not still use Warfarin as a rat poison? My grandfather was on Coumadin for a while, classic old-school blood-thinner. Pretty rough.</p></blockquote>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:73a8615d-077d-98ab-a0f8-af61d978f1802015-08-24T12:27:32-06:00<p>Thanks,<p>Creating a device or at least a method for predicting panic episodes is kind of a pie-in-the-sky dream. But if I'm going to be collecting a bunch of related data anyway I might as well try. It's not like I have much to lose by formatting and feeding a bunch of numbers to an ANN.</p><p>Ugh, caffeine. You know I drink de-caf coffee now? What have I become? ;)</p></p>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:416993a9-5e64-c21a-bb18-1f6a13225d4b2015-08-24T12:23:20-06:00<p>Thanks so much, and I appreciate all of you folks for taking time to read it!</p>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:3e7c8235-b5cd-e1c7-32ab-96fd98c3bc592015-08-24T12:22:28-06:00<p>Thank you!</p>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:03f28ef9-4766-a2ec-ace3-2e6899a47b082015-08-24T12:22:08-06:00<p>This graph was actually generated out of Google Sheets. I will say that I'm not a huge fan of the way that the graphs are displayed, they seem pretty taxing on Flash. That said, they are handy and can be embedded with simple code. I was posting the data to a Google Sheet using an online form but it may be possible to post directly from a connected device.<p>Hope that helps!</p></p>
Nick Poole on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightNick Pooleurn:uuid:c4be5f77-e4f5-44a1-862b-97f47ff40b9d2015-08-24T12:19:42-06:00<p>I appreciate and share your concern. That would be the bit where I stopped leaving the house for a few weeks.</p>
Matt51 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightMatt51urn:uuid:3c1eea09-642d-893c-7e2a-f7518323e1e92015-08-21T09:27:57-06:00<p>A little off topic of this article, but does anyone know how the interactive graph was made? or keywords to look up to find out how to do this? I am currently building a solar charging station at my university and I am looking to post data to the internet to simplify the information I gather!</p>
JohnM. on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightJohnM.urn:uuid:8ff2b8df-8d83-47b0-3681-f80b9475ba682015-08-21T09:22:37-06:00<p>If your anxiety symptoms are as severe as you describe, I think you have a moral obligation to stop driving! While I certainly sympathize with your plight, I surely would not want myself or any of my loved ones to be in the vicinity of your vehicle while you are suffering from an anxiety attack! I wish you the best of luck, but by driving you are making a lot of unwitting (and probably, unwilling) people a party to your illness.</p>
Customer #546458 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightCustomer #546458urn:uuid:cbe66b8e-45bd-31f6-ee7a-23728d7843d32015-08-18T21:26:17-06:00<p>This was a great read and I'm looking forward to more. I actually just got a Donorschoose project funded for the Make!Sense sensors and boards (as well as a BP sensor and Oximeter) so my high school students can use Scratch to explore their health through electronics (http://bit.ly/1Nszx7F). I'd really love to see more articles and maybe even videos on how you design and use electronics to monitor your health. Best of luck with your anxiety - a psychologist and running are what worked for me.</p>
rsp on Quantified Living: Fight or Flightrspurn:uuid:50e4283b-ff36-8e4d-c5b1-e6b3995447d32015-08-18T15:46:11-06:00<p>CBT can be quite effective against some types of depression. But it requires self-awareness to recognize the onset of a depression episode. The sooner the onset of an episode is detected the more effective the CBT becomes, so if you can create a device that detects the onset of depression quickly it could certainly help people.<p>Anxiety disorder is tough to fight and I feel for you. Avoid retriggering, stress, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, hope for the best, and never give up.</p></p>
Customer #134773 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightCustomer #134773urn:uuid:effc9137-cd09-2b68-3f8a-91b5f46ba9522015-08-18T12:30:22-06:00<p>Hmm... this got me to read the Wikipedia entry on prothrombin time. It mumbles something about Medicare paying for the INR machine for folks with a mechanical heart valve (which I have). I'm not on Medicare, but will investigate seeing if my insurance will cover it. So, Nick, your post may have some unexpected benefits! Thanks!</p>
Customer #134773 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightCustomer #134773urn:uuid:1208a4b4-0d49-b9be-1d93-bffa661337832015-08-18T12:12:06-06:00<p>My first comment: If you <em>are</em> actually having panic attacks, one word: Psychiatrist. These folks are MDs, and often know what to look for in the way of causes and/or triggers, and thy have several things in their "bag of tricks" to help you prevent, or at least deal with, the problems.<p>Second comment: Although it is VERY doubtful an indicator in your case, there is another blood metric that has to be measured if you're on certain meds (notably Coumadin [warfarin], which at one time was used as rat poison). That's commonly referred to as "protime" or "prothrombin time" (aka INR) which measures how fast the blood clots. There are little gadgets available similar to the blood glucose tester to measure INR, but they cost $1200 for the little machine, and the strips run about $8 EACH (and they're only good for one test!). Worse, they have a "shelf life" of only a few months. (I usually have to go in once a month for the test. It can also be done with hypodermic blood draw, but fortunately there's a "clinic" locally that uses the "one drop" machine. If the strips were a buck a piece I might spring for the machine and check myself a few times a week. BTW, the little machine takes maybe 90 seconds to get a result -- the blood draw method can take several hours or more, so virtually every ER has the machine, but we all know how much they charge!) A large part of the reason that glucose monitoring machines/strips are so cheap is that there are, unfortunately, a LOT of people who need them and need to use them multiple times a day, so there's a lot of competition between manufacturers/suppliers.</p></p>
Customer #710801 on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightCustomer #710801urn:uuid:2840fdc8-698d-2f21-e9f9-80bf7e86264b2015-08-18T11:55:01-06:00<p>Thank you for sharing. I share some of your experiences, but don't think I could share as you did (it takes courage!).<p>I hope your project goes well, because it sounds like a good one (real life pip-boy perhaps).</p></p>
OldFar-SeeingArt on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightOldFar-SeeingArturn:uuid:503fdbbf-464c-3e96-1568-645dc3cdf40b2015-08-18T10:28:04-06:00<p>Once again, there are two kinds of people: those who know about these topics and those who don't. For those people who don't know about it, this topic may come as a surprise. I was in the 'don't know' crowd up to a few months ago. The first place I read about this topic was Wil Wheaton's blog. He has had depression and panic attacks for several years and he has written detailed accounts about living with it.<p>As he says often - 'depression lies'. And as usual, knowing what's up is half the battle in over coming it. Thanks for sharing your demons with us. The more they are brought out into the broad light of day, the easier it becomes to chase them away.</p></p>
M-Short on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightM-Shorturn:uuid:f0755c64-5aab-cf85-a015-2d50368ebbe02015-08-18T10:22:09-06:00<p>Really it depends on your usage. HIPAA is really only for health care professionals and what they can release. Unless you were wanting to start a business specifically to post health data I doubt it would be an issue. You can post your own data anywhere, and since data.sparkfun.com is basically anonymous it does afford privacy based on that. For your own data it is really a matter of what level of privacy you want.
Disclaimer (I'm not a lawyer, but I have worked jobs where understanding and following HIPAA regulations was required).</p>
Sembazuru on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightSembazuruurn:uuid:6373f489-045d-367c-6b00-537208af5d9f2015-08-18T09:56:50-06:00<p>Oh, also kudos on being willing to talk about this very personal issue.</p>
Sembazuru on Quantified Living: Fight or FlightSembazuruurn:uuid:0cfddaae-fae2-adaf-c469-85ef2a0b129c2015-08-18T09:55:39-06:00<p>Sorry to hear that you are prone to panic attacks (and SAD). Thankfully, I haven't experienced a panic attack, but I have some friends who also have panic attacks. I know I can't do anything for them during the attack, but I always try to be there for them when the come out the other side.<p>Kudos on making lemonade here.</p><p>Have you found any cloud data systems (like data.sparkfun) but would conform to HIPAA privacy standards? Would a phant installation on a personal home server be sufficient?</p></p>